RE FRAME YOUR LIFE

RE FRAME YOUR LIFE

All must deal with the baggage we accumulate as we journey through life. You know what “baggage” is. It’s the stuff from your past that you carry around in your soul. It’s the words people said and the things people did that haunt your mind and limit your potential. It weighs you down. It crowds your relationships. It causes you to stumble through life.
Today, we begin a journey of looking into our “life suitcase,” and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will bring it to him as he asked us to…

If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, CEV)

THE TRUTH ABOUT BAGGAGE

The key sources of baggage…

Unforgiven Offenses

Hebrews 12:15, Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. (NLT)

Unhealed Wounds

Psalm 72:2, I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal. (Msg)

Unfulfilled Dreams

Proverbs 13:12, Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick. (Msg)

Unredeemd Sin
1 John 1:6, We are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. (NLT)

Baggage hinders us in the race of life.

Hebrews 12:1, We must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially the sin that just won’t let go. And we must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us. (CEV)

Great men and women of the Bible struggled with baggage.

Romans 8:15-24, In fact, I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do what I know is right. I do the things I hate…I am not the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them. With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God. But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am. Who will rescue me…? (CEV)

Baggage gives Satan an opportunity in your life.

Ephesians 4:26-27, Don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life. (Msg)

TAKE ON YOUR BAGGAGE

Take responsibility.

1 Corinthians 6:12, I will not let anything make me its slave. (NCV)

Take it seriously.

1 Corinthians 9:27, I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified. (NLT)

Take it to God.

Romans 6:12-14, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires…but rather offer yourselves to God…For sin shall not be your master…(NIV)

REFRAME YOUR LIFE

Do not let your past determine who you are.

1 Cor 6:9-11, Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (NLT)

Embrace your identity in Christ.

2 Cor 5:16-17, We are careful not to judge people by what they seem to be…Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. (CEV)

Romans 7:24-25, Who will rescue me? Thank God, Jesus Christ will rescue me! (CEV)